The Search The Secrets of Crittenden Cou - By Shelley Shepard Gray Page 0,4
her new undertaking at all. Instead he’d wanted her to refuse the gift and continue to stay home, waiting to be married one day. Their few conversations about it hadn’t ended well. And so, typical of them, they’d decided to agree to disagree. As long as Frannie wasn’t expecting any help from him.
Since she’d taken over the inn, four months ago, she’d kept her promise.
“Beth, he’s a shy man, and a man much more comfortable with sheep and cows than with people, especially English people. I cannot ask him for help.”
“If you don’t ask him, I hope you will allow someone to help you. No one can live on no sleep, you know. I read about sleep problems when I was sitting in the waiting room at the dentist the other day. Scientists have studied situations like this. Someone is going to get hurt. Probably you. Then what will happen to your inn?”
“Beth,” she said with exaggerated patience. “It’s not like I’m not trying to sleep. It’s just that when I put my head down at night, my eyes pop open and my mind speeds up. Suddenly sleep is the last thing I can do.”
After a long moment, Beth clucked her tongue. “You should talk to Micah about it.”
Frannie jerked her head so fast, she was surprised it hadn’t wrenched from her neck. “What does Micah have to do with anything?”
“He’s sweet on you. Has been forever.”
“Not forever. Not exactly.”
“All right. He has been for almost forever. For most of your life.”
Except when Perry had been courting her.
“I’m not ready to see Micah again.”
“No? Well, all right, then.” After finishing her pan of twelve, Beth sighed and grabbed another muffin tin and began filling more cups. “I can’t believe we make sixty of these at a time,” she grumbled.
“When I make sixty, I have enough pastries for a few days,” she explained patiently. “I do appreciate your help.”
“It’s no trouble. I just wish we could figure out why you can’t sleep. If we got to the root of the problem, I bet you’ll get some rest again.”
Frannie nodded, but she felt as if her insides were ripping apart.
Because, well, she knew exactly why she couldn’t sleep. It was the same reason she couldn’t see Micah. It was the reason she felt guilty and anxious. And why she looked at everything and everyone in the county in a new way.
All because of Perry Borntrager.
Her memories of the last time she saw him caused her to ache. So did his murder. And the investigation.
“I’ll start putting the filling inside the pastry cups,” she said briskly, picking up the antique glass bowl that her aunt had left to her as an “innkeeper gift.”
“Frannie, be careful, that glass bowl is so old and fragile.”
“You’ve become such a worrywart, Beth! I use this bowl all the time.” She held it up to show how well she managed it.
Which was a foolish thing to do, for sure.
No sooner had she lifted the bowl to show off—
The bowl slipped out of her hands as if it had been coated with oil, crashing onto the hard tile countertop.
The old glass was thin. Thin and delicate. When it hit, the bowl shattered into a hundred—if not thousand pieces—each shard sharp and dangerous. And somehow, the majority of the glass bounced off the countertop and took aim at her. Flying right into her face.
All at once, a thousand needles pricked her skin and sent waves of pain throughout her body. Shock engulfed her.
She stood frozen, confused, dazed.
Immediately, her skin felt wet, and instinctively she knew it was from blood, not tears . . . because one of her eyes felt covered in glass.
The pain was unbearable.
Finally, her sluggish brain kicked in and reported the news to her mouth. She cried out, raised her hands up to her face— Too late!
Instead of creating a shield, her hands only served to embed some shards deeper.
It seemed so, anyway, because that was what she felt as the whole room turned dark. And whether it from the pain or the glass, she wasn’t sure.
As she sank to the ground, she was only vaguely aware of Beth’s cries for help.
And that, though she’d done her best to go on with her life with no sleep, perhaps Beth had been right.
A person without sleep could only last so long without consequences.
From the other side of their table at Mary King’s, Mose Kramer glared hard and long at Luke. Then he spoke.